I’ve spent much of the last decade under to unemployed. My excuses have run the gamut, but the truth, ugly though it is, is that it’s never made any sense to me to work any harder than I had to to survive. Sure, when I was younger I’d get an occasional wild-hair and set about trying to dominate. Never could stick with it though. Like I said, it doesn’t make sense to me. Other than Direct TV and the Internet, there just aren’t that many things I want to do today.

Still, like most of us, I have to work, at least some of the time. This is turning into one of those times, but alas, I have no fire in my belly. A big part of that lack of drive is that the bullshit associated with earning a living has left me chronically disgusted. It’s gone on long enough now for me to have accepted that it’s to be a life-long affliction. Unless you’re living the Tony Robinson experience, you probably know how I feel.

When I was younger, I was full of myself. As a result, I was a good salesman. All you have to do to be a success at sales is learn to listen, and make the calls. I know what it takes, but I can’t do it anymore. Somewhere along the road of life my spirit was crushed. The net affect of this is that I now realize that it’s entirely possible that I don’t know more about people’s businesses than they do. In my halcyon days, such thoughts never plagued my mind.

With the pruning of my ego, many of the employment options I’d once enjoyed were cut away. I’m still quite capable of lying, but I don’t believe my lies anymore, so I’m not much of a salesman. Additionally, I lack the energy to make the calls, and to even begin to pretend that I don’t despise 99.9% of the human race. That may be an exaggeration, but the figure certainly applies to those good at business. Fact is, curmudgeons don’t make stellar sales people, and I’ve become an old goat.

I’ve tried various other industries, but always with very limited success. I don’t suffer fools well, and working in retail or the restaurant worlds means enduring a ton of foolishness, mostly from people higher up in the company food chain. I do alright for awhile, but then one day I ask myself just exactly what it is I think I’m doing, and from that moment forward I’m on borrowed time. Truthfully, it’s beyond my control, but I guess that’s just my cross to bear.

Anyway, the point of this cathartic post was to state that the Age of Bullshit is nowhere more evident than along the help wanted trail. Fully half of the jobs in the local rag, as well as the online sites, are for street hustlers, or door-to-door peddlers if you prefer. They disguise it, but you don’t have to fall for them but once to have a sort of sixth sense about their ads. Most of the other jobs are almost perpetually in the paper. That, of course, begs the question, why can’t these companies keep help? I won’t bother to answer that. Use your imagination.

So I’m looking for work, at least in the most technical sense. I haven’t actually donned decent garb and knocked on doors, but I’ll have to soon enough. That will inevitably lead to yet another shitster job I’ll manage to hold down for somewhere between one hour, and six months. That’s about as good as I can realistically expect it to get. Intellectually I realize how fortunate I am to be who and where I am, but I don’t feel particulary grateful. A lifeless life, is, well, lifeless.

Crime would be looking pretty good, if not for the lack of Direct TV and Internet connections in the state pen.